Juggling job offers - also general question on Japanese companies

So I am looking at 1 solid, 1 semi-solid, and 1 potential job offer coming down the pipe, all for .NET developer roles.

The first: one of the biggest Japanese banks (the solid):- $115k/year + unknown bonus.- Associate (AKA AVP) level.- Located in Jersey City - not thrilled with the commute but doable.- Japanese corporate culture - ???

The second is well known private equity firm (the semi-solid, because of the contingency below):- Contingency 3 month contract, guaranteed to go perm after that. $70/hour rate for the 3 months, $100k+/year + bonus.- Name recognition + historically bonus is supposedly in the generous 5-digits for an IT developer.- Not sure about level/title, but is a 'senior developer' role.- Midtown NYC - commute is nice.

The third is a big/well known hedge fund (potential):- The team loved me and was eager to bring me aboard ASAP...until I did a final round interview with the CIO who asked me what my GPA was (I graduated 10 years ago). My GPA is not good, and this apparently has thrown a wrench into the process.- Was supposed to be a full-time perm position until the GPA incident, now they are mulling whether to make this contract first...- Per the recruiter's request to try to get over this bump, gave references for my two previous managers who have provided glowing reviews.- According to the recruiter can expect salary in the 100-120k range + bonus.- Name recognition.

What would Ars do?

Personally, I don't like the instability that goes with contracting. All else equal I would take a perm role that pays slightly less over a contract role that pays slightly more.

#3 kinda pisses me off that my GPA is still being considered a factor despite my being out of school for nearly a decade and having a solid work record (with references) to go with it. Not to mention the team I'd be working with likes me very much.

#2 was my top choice...however I did not know about the whole contract contingency until the offer actually came through. Murphy's Law is what worries me, since I think the margin of error of performing well vs. not-so-well is going to be smaller while under scrutiny.

The biggest concern about #1 is the Japanese culture. Honestly, this was my last choice, and I was hoping/expecting either #2 or #3 would have turned out well. Looking up this company on GlassDoor, the reviews are predominantly bad, with most of the complaints involving poor management and overbearing bureacracy/red tape, as well as the 'Japanese corporate culture'.

What is it like to work at a Japanese firm (and a big, conservative one at that) as a gaijin? I know first hand what it was like to work at a Korean company (albeit as a native Korean), and I did not like it at all.

Well you're going to like being a Korean in an Japanese shop even less.

The second one sounds pretty promising. It's quite normal for people to be on probation for the first 3 months. Can you not screw up for three months?

Finally, I've never met you. WTF, mate?

Agreed, I had a 90-day time where I wasn't eligible for any of the company benefits (health care, etc) which was more or less a probationary period. The contract-to-perm I've seen before, but never done it. Is the offer written in such a way that it's automatic and they need to take active steps to avoid it from automatically occurring?

On #2 - the hiring manager told the recruiter that my 'starting date' would be the date I started working as a contractor, not when they flip me to perm, and I could probably get the contract-to-perm clause in writing.

The role involves facing off with business users. For the most part I am comfortable with this, and in past roles have been given rave reviews from users that I was the best 'customer support'-er on my teams.

However, said business users in this case include billionaire partners, and quite frankly I'm a bit intimidated about coming across poorly when one of them might be having a bad day.

On the flip side, the recruiter (and due-diligence Internet research) seems to indicate that once you're in at this place, it's kind of a lifetime employer kind of shop.

Ok whatever, I will adjust the equation to You will like it <= to the bad experience you had at the Korean shop. If he didn't like one, he's not going to like the other. He won't like the corporate similarities, and potential for prejudice will not help.

I'm not too concerned about any problems with prejudice. If nothing else the manager on the team is Chinese, and it didn't look like he had any issues.

I'm more concerned about things like heavy politics, having to defer any meaningful decision to the bureaucrats in Tokyo (and the associated lag time in getting anything done) and most importantly, "face time" culture where just occupying your desk the longest is rewarded over efficient work - a huge problem in Korean companies and from what I understand, just as bad if not worse in Japanese ones.

The former I know will be an issue from what I gleaned in the interview. The latter I was afraid to ask without sounding rude, but from GlassDoor reviews it sounds that it definitely is present in at least some departments.

Having worked in the industry, couple questions - 1) You mention having left school 10 years ago; does this mean you have 10 years of dev experience? If that's the case, I'd be very careful about accepting offers for AVP-equivalent ($115K-$120K) positions. 2) Are you talking about Nomura? I wouldn't be too worried about Japanese culture issues since you're in the NY office and working on the dev side.

#1 - How come? I have roughly ~8 years of "real" dev experience, ~1 year of dev experience (PHP) as a self-employed (well, partnership with one other person) web developer, and ~1 year of more or less general unemployment.#2 - No, it's Bank of Tokyo.

#3 came back, saying that it's going to be contract, 12 months @ $75/hour + overtime. No guarantee to hire, but they will do their best to flip to perm at the earlier point possible. Possibility of contract extension is obviously there, and two members of the team I had interviewed with were also contractors who had been there for 3+ years. They had also been offered to be flipped to perm, but both had refused.

As mentioned before, contracting is something I'd prefer not to do, but at that sum, I'm looking at essentially $156K/year assuming 2080 working hours (correct me if wrong). That's almost 2x I was making at my previous (perm) position, not factoring in taxes......

I suppose my "dream career" path had me seeing myself as an IT VP or even director at a major (western) bank when I'm in my 40s (I'm 30). I was on track for AVP promotion at my previous position when they laid me off. Contracting obviously does not have any titling, but I guess I'm debating whether a 1 year+ detour might be worth it financially...

I did a final round interview with the CIO who asked me what my GPA was (I graduated 10 years ago).

Even though this one came back, I'd skip it. That's just me personally, but anyone who gives a shit about something so minute that happened so long ago is just going to waste my time on other things in the future.

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I suppose my "dream career" path had me seeing myself as an IT VP or even director at a major (western) bank when I'm in my 40s (I'm 30).

Ok whatever, I will adjust the equation to You will like it <= to the bad experience you had at the Korean shop. If he didn't like one, he's not going to like the other. He won't like the corporate similarities, and potential for prejudice will not help.

Came in to basically post this. It's a Japanese bank - older generation Japanese males.

I did a final round interview with the CIO who asked me what my GPA was (I graduated 10 years ago).

Even though this one came back, I'd skip it. That's just me personally, but anyone who gives a shit about something so minute that happened so long ago is just going to waste my time on other things in the future.

++Especially since this guy is presumably your ultimate boss, him being a full-on idiot is not a good sign.

Also, contract works signals "you are not a core member of the organization". Even if the two who interviewed you were also contractors, it's worse -- "IT is not a valued core function here" (and it's not some silly principle, since the possibility was on the table initially).

I did a final round interview with the CIO who asked me what my GPA was (I graduated 10 years ago).

Even though this one came back, I'd skip it. That's just me personally, but anyone who gives a shit about something so minute that happened so long ago is just going to waste my time on other things in the future.

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I suppose my "dream career" path had me seeing myself as an IT VP or even director at a major (western) bank when I'm in my 40s (I'm 30).

What size bank? What do you feel the job entails?

Ideally bulge-bracket, but would not mind something smaller either. Based on what I saw my (ex)bosses at that level doing, lots of high level architecting, project management, liasing with the business.

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Also, contract works signals "you are not a core member of the organization". Even if the two who interviewed you were also contractors, it's worse -- "IT is not a valued core function here" (and it's not some silly principle, since the possibility was on the table initially).

For what it's worth, the hiring manager and his manager came back to me personally saying that he'll fight nail and tooth to get me flipped to perm at the first available headcount opportunity.

I've ruled out #1. I'm having a hard time deciding between #2 and #3. I think the main difference is that #2 is a smaller shop with a tiny IT dept., while #3 is a (slightly) bigger shop with a bigger IT dept. #2's name is arguably slightly more prestigious as well.

When/if the conversion from contract to fulltime comes for either, is the perm salary usually based on the contracting rate (I know it's going to be lower obviously, but does higher contracting rate usually translate to higher perm salary)?

I did a final round interview with the CIO who asked me what my GPA was (I graduated 10 years ago).

Even though this one came back, I'd skip it. That's just me personally, but anyone who gives a shit about something so minute that happened so long ago is just going to waste my time on other things in the future.

Quote:

I suppose my "dream career" path had me seeing myself as an IT VP or even director at a major (western) bank when I'm in my 40s (I'm 30).

What size bank? What do you feel the job entails?

Ideally bulge-bracket, but would not mind something smaller either. Based on what I saw my (ex)bosses at that level doing, lots of high level architecting, project management, liasing with the business.

Quote:

Also, contract works signals "you are not a core member of the organization". Even if the two who interviewed you were also contractors, it's worse -- "IT is not a valued core function here" (and it's not some silly principle, since the possibility was on the table initially).

For what it's worth, the hiring manager and his manager came back to me personally saying that he'll fight nail and tooth to get me flipped to perm at the first available headcount opportunity.

Your call on that one, of course... Try and find out before you accept an offer exactly what the differences are, both in term of the last issue below & other benefits (e.g., if vacation is dependent on seniority, will they take the contracting period into account once you become a permanent worker?)

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I'm having a hard time deciding between #2 and #3. I think the main difference is that #2 is a smaller shop with a tiny IT dept., while #3 is a (slightly) bigger shop with a bigger IT dept. #2's name is arguably slightly more prestigious as well.

This didn't come up before, but might have big implications on career horizon... A larger dept size may (or may not) mean more interesting/complex projects and/or more responsibility (and so advancement opportunities) later on. What are your mid- and longer-term goals, specifically, both professionally (specialization in programming? Financial-type? Admin-type IT? Security (obviously big in financial IT)?) as well as managerially -- at what point in your career do you want to start having responsibilities for projects and/or direct reports?How to the two positions compare w.r.t. where they place you on your path? This is no less important than short-term overall compensation or comfort level of corp. culture.

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When/if the conversion from contract to fulltime comes for either, is the perm salary usually based on the contracting rate (I know it's going to be lower obviously, but does higher contracting rate usually translate to higher perm salary)?

Don't know about your industry, but in the pure-tech sector, for employees that are expected to become permanent, the rule of thumb I'm familiar with in respectable companies is the contracting rate is actually determined by what it would cost them to pay a fulltime worker in the role (not including bonuses).However, it doesn't really matter what "usually" means -- ask them! Now is the time to do it, and it's a completely reasonable question to raise.

IMO, if they're serious about making you permanent when they can, they should be able & willing to give you full details of the eventual offer (essentially, let you see what the employment contract would look like, with all details) contingent on you being fully satisfactory. This would be non-binding on them, of course, but if they're not even willing to address the question now, I'd be doubtful about the future.

This didn't come up before, but might have big implications on career horizon... A larger dept size may (or may not) mean more interesting/complex projects and/or more responsibility (and so advancement opportunities) later on. What are your mid- and longer-term goals, specifically, both professionally (specialization in programming? Financial-type? Admin-type IT? Security (obviously big in financial IT)?) as well as managerially -- at what point in your career do you want to start having responsibilities for projects and/or direct reports?How to the two positions compare w.r.t. where they place you on your path? This is no less important than short-term overall compensation or comfort level of corp. culture.

My first real job out of college was a small shop of ~20 employees, and when I left I was the team lead of 5 developers. I certainly did wear a lot of hats, but I see what you mean about a larger organization potentially offering a different scale in the kind of projects it would offer. My second (the last) job was a huge corp., and I think I did enjoy the bigger projects that I got to work on there as opposed to the smaller ones from my first job.

I went from a small managerial role (at first job) back to being a grunt developer. By the time I was laid off, I was semi-managing a more junior employee. When I left my first job, I was definitely not cut out for managing anything, and even now I'm not sure I can really be a good manager, but I do see myself getting to that point with a few more years of maybe managing a single person and/or observing how other people do it.

I don't think either position places me on a direct path to where I want to see myself in say, 5 years, both in terms of the business line I'd be supporting or the full technology stack being used. Both do offer a chance for me to work a bit with VBA/VSTO - the lack of experience with which apparently narrowly cost me an offer for a different position from another megabank that I would have taken without hesitation.

Specific goals, beyond what I mentioned in my previous post would be working in IT supporting a front or middle office position - say, a trading desk, or in risk (this specifically was what I was working towards before getting laid off). I don't think I'd ever be interested in something huge as managing an entire department, but definitely would want to manage a local dev. team while also being a liaison with the business side as well.

I guess after thinking about it a lot, both places I would probably want out after not too long (say a year?) if I wanted to stick to my envisioned career goals, but then again I have not actually started working there, so who knows if I suddenly were to love it.

The unmentioned option of course, is to decline both and wait for something closer to my goal(s), but I'm nearing a point where financially and professionally I should get back to working ASAP.

I did a final round interview with the CIO who asked me what my GPA was (I graduated 10 years ago).

Even though this one came back, I'd skip it. That's just me personally, but anyone who gives a shit about something so minute that happened so long ago is just going to waste my time on other things in the future.

Seriously, WTF. What a meaningless metric a decade later. That's like taking someone's first job as a paperboy in 1993 and asking for references and a letter of recommendation from their distributor. Although, that being said, I have heard stories of deep background checks that involved roommates you had in your freshman year, former childhood neighbors, and things supposedly "sealed" in your childhood record like shoplifting busts, but ONLY for TS clearance and things of that nature.